by Mish Shedlock, Mish Talk:
San Francisco wanted to give blacks $5 million each. Instead it eliminated the entire reparations office.
Good riddance to an idiotic office that should never have existed in the first place. In a Brutal Turn for San Francisco Reparations, city budget cuts strip all funding.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
In January, a San Francisco panel studying reparations for slavery came up with an ambitious proposal — a lump sum of payment of $5 million to every eligible black American in the City by the Bay.
And that was just the start. The San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee also proposed the elimination of all personal debt, guaranteed income of $97,000 for black residents for 250 years, and providing homes for black residents at a price of $1 each, libertarian writer Kristin Tate wrote in an April commentary in The Hill.
The cost to the city for this fantastical plan was estimated at $175 billion for the $5 million payouts alone, without taking into account the other add-ons. That amount is bigger than the entire annual budgets of 47 of the 50 U.S. states, The Hill reported.
When asked if the $5 million per person number was too large for a city to handle, committee Supervisor Shamann Walton said that it was just the opposite.However, according to Walton, that $5 million per black person is only delayed.
“My hope is that the city’s deficit is eliminated quickly so that we can fund the Office of Reparations and fulfill the commitment made to address the historical injustices and inequities that have persisted for generations for black San Franciscans,” Walton told the Examiner.
Walton did not mention that the projected budget deficit for San Francisco will increase to $1 billion by 2027, according to the Examiner.
March 17, 2023 Flashback
In March, I commented San Francisco Board Unanimously Supports $5 Million Per Person Reparation Payments
The city created the reparation panel in 2020. It made a recommendation in March.
The board expressed “unanimous” support for reparations during the meeting, even after Stanford University’s Hoover Institution calculated that the proposal would cost non-Black families in the city at least $600,000.
There was “unanimous support” for the proposal, yet it did not pass.
By my calculation, the price tag for San Francisco was $192.7 billion vs the $175 billion price listed above.
The entire city budget is only $13 billion.
At the state level, I estimated the proposal would cost a mere $569 billion.
Bear in mind, these reparations are from people who never owned slaves to people who never were slaves in a state that never had slaves.
Too Bad It Didn’t Pass
If the board actually approved this nonsense, I suspect everyone who voted in favor would immediately be voted out of office in special elections and the bill would be quickly struck down as unconstitutional.
Thus, it’s too bad it did not pass.
Fortunately, backlash against woke stupidity has begun.
The Left Takes a Hit in Seattle
On November 15, the Wall Street Journal reported The Left Takes a Hit in Seattle
There’s some good news in American politics, believe it or not, and in Seattle of all places. While votes are still being tallied, it’s clear that voters delivered a rebuke to the anti-police City Council.
Four seats held by progressives were won by candidates running on an anti-crime platform. Two others are still up for grabs, with another vacancy to be filled next year by the next City Council.
The clear message is that even Seattle’s progressive voters are tired of rising crime and violence in the wake of the defund-police movement and the 2020 “summer of love.” Last year the city recorded the highest crime levels in 15 years, including a near-record 52 homicides. Some 580 police have retired or quit since 2020, and Seattle now has fewer than 940 deployable officers—the fewest since at least 1991.
Complete Rout
KOMO News reports a Complete Route in Seattle
King County Elections has certified the November results and Seattle will have a significantly new City Council.
Rob Saka, Tammy Morales, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, Cathy Moore, Dan Strauss, and Bob Kettle were all declared victors. Strauss and Morales are the only incumbents to win re-election. Kettle defeated Andrew Lewis.
The WSJ article noted that in campaign mailers this year Mr. Strauss admitted that “defund the police was a mistake.”
